407 Express Toll Route Patrol Yard

Administrative, Storage and Maintenance Facility

Located adjacent to the 407 ETR Head Office on Steeles Avenue between Highways 27 and 427, this phased project accommodates a new 2,600m2 Patrol Building with administrative spaces, a wash bay, four maintenance bays for the plow trucks, an outdoor covered area for 22 plow trucks, site storage, and temporary housing trailers for on-duty winter snow plow drivers. The final phase includes replacement of the existing salt domes with a new salt building designed to allow for internal loading of salt in an effort to reduce the environmental impact of salt run-off.

Upgrades to the existing maintenance yard include improved connectivity to the highway for the crews that work 24-hours a day, every day to ensure 407 ETR is one of the cleanest, safest highways in the world. As with most vehicle operations and maintenance facilities, the challenges to meet the requirements for an expansive storage and circulation spaces within a works yard, and the absence of a public component as an opportunity for enriched civic presence and amenity, do not inherently foster humane, inspiring spaces.

The team’s solution is to celebrate and articulate the different scale of occupancy between people versus vehicle. The building is sited to reinforce the boundary between the pedestrian and employee area and the operational works yard. Screening of the open storage areas is achieved by a combination of orienting the long side of the Patrol Building parallel to Steeles Avenue, providing a landscaped street edge, and introducing smaller scale moments through the plantings.